Tuesday, June 19, 2007

As you wish.

Someone asked for this picture. So here it is.



And here's a couple random shots.


Susan and her family did a LOT of sewing that week. Susan was a wonderful costume and set designer.


Driving was a big part of our week, too.

As were packing the cars.


"Hmm......."

Monday, June 18, 2007

Pictures from Saturday

Many apologies that these pictures couldn't be posted with their written stories below. But they can be posted now, so hopefully you are enjoying a peak into our week on the set. Here in a bit, we'll try to be updating you on Post Production.


Our clapboard apparatus. "Marker!" as we came to call it, probably due to the fact that our set-up consisted of a marker board, and that we were forever looking for the marker. The system worked very well.






John V and JC checking the monitor. Eventually we moved it out of the room because it was so cramped in there.


Reeling from the fog.
That's just how it looks. Really, John V is shooting BTS (camera is out of shot), Matt B is looking at the monitor and messing with his hat while leaning against the wall. JC is working on his camera and looking at the monitor. While no one really enjoyed breathing the dense fog put out by JC's machine, we were very grateful he used vanilla-scented fog rather than unscented. Apparently, unscented is pretty bad stuff. Now that's a thoughtful DP.


In between takes.
It was dark, humid and hot in that small room. Amazing all the action that took place in spite of it. Lots of pressure, but lots of learning, fun and prayer!


Good Job!


A glimpse at this scene's finished product.

Trailer is up!

Visit our home page for a link to view the trailer for our current project, now titled, Call of Courage!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Pictures


Lovely southern Oklahoma.


Preparing for the official director's interview for Behind the Scenes. Rachel, our make-up artist, get's Matt lookin good for the camera. Sage is ready at the light with a reflector, JC is preparing the camera, Matt S (out of shot) is about to embark on the taxing job of holding the boom; John V helped with BTS, and Kayleen asked Matt the questions. Notice the air mattress along the wall. There was no furniture or carpet in the house, so we used air matresses along the walls, and towels and blankets on the floor to cut down on echo.

Matt did an outstanding job during the interview. It can be hard answering questions about a movie still in progress. Along with answering the questions with the right balance of conciseness and the details people might want to hear, he had to remember to repeat the question in his answer so the audience would know where he was coming from, as well as not be distracted by the whole set-up and answer somewhat naturally.


Driving out to a scene location.
"Yes, we love Chik-fil-a, promise. Can we get by now?"


JC and Matt (and John N) walking through a scene...


While the BTS crew watch their every move.
I believe this is the same scene location you see Noah's name come up in the trailer.


Another good one of the guys at our 50's hot spot.


During one of our nightly planning meetings. Matt B, John V, Jaclyn, computers, chords, equipment, chairs, lights, more computers....kind of cramped in there--good for bonding, as we would come to say.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

That is, until

Someone pointed out that we could VERY CAREFULLY hook it up to a car battery.

But first, imagine this scene taking place....

You've spent however long getting all the last details ready: Setting the monitor up. Lugging stuff in from the cars. Preparing the exposure and white balance on the camera. Hanging curtains. Fiddling with the window shutters. Radio-ing back to the house "can you please bring ___?" Do we tie back the curtains (with invisible duct tape) or leave them down? It's overcast--not enough light will come through the window--not even enough to look like moonlight. Where is the fog machine? No that's not a purple box--the fog machine is in a purple box. Still working on white balance. The light inside is too bright--we need to find a better diffuser. Don't trip over the chords!! Yep we're still shooting it from this direction and then from over there and then... Laying linens on the floor to cut down on echo. Yes we're shooting it from over here. It's raining (again). We don't have enough wind to make the curtains blow--looks like we'll need a fan--how do we get one out there? Radio back: Yeah, can you bring the fan with you? Dealing with audio interference. Choking over the fog (but many thanks to JC who used Vanilla-scented fog and spared us the added torment of the regular stuff). What exactly do we write on the clapboard? Do we really need a fan? The wind is blowing now. Where is _____? Evan (actor number one) arrives with the rest of crew. The wind has stopped. Naylor sets up a light outside the window--it's so believable that the folks inside think the sun came out! Ok, so the white board is written on--what do we use to clap? Make-up!! Yes get the fan out there. Evan tries to concentrate The Assistant Director (AD) reminds everyone of the time. We need an umbrella for that light outside--it's still raining. Use dolly shims for clappers. WHERE IS THE MARKER?!! The BTS cams won't stop down far enough to expose properly inside--what is wrong?? Almost ready to roll. Doin' good. Other actor will be here any minute...

Flicker, sputter, dark and quiet.

Hmm. Let's try that again. "What happened out there? Why'd you unplug us?" "We didn't." Ok, up and running again. Continuing. John, can you turn the light up a little? Never mind, down. Good. "Sunlight" went away. Restart the battery. Test the audio. Continue working. Monitor goes out. "What's up with the battery? How long is it supposed to last?" "Several hours under a full load." "We're not even pulling a full load." Hmm. running again. Fan for the window curtains goes out. John Vines inspects the battery. Try again. It quits.

What to do? Pray.

Now imagine, your second and very important actor arrives along with extended family (we knew they were coming and were looking forward to seeing them!)...and there is no way you can shoot. But he's costumed-up and ready to go. Talk about pressure!! The room you're about to film in is way too dark without the extra lights. Power is at zero. People are still scurrying around and racking their brains to come up with a solution. Calls to our sound tech (the Snake Slayer who is at home in DFW recovering from his snake bite) have been made, but he doesn't know what's wrong either. The battery should be charged already. We've tried everything and still can't get it to pull even a small power load.

Actor number two points out that we could VERY CAREFULLY hook it up to a car battery....

Which we do. And to make a long story short, while VERY CAREFULLY using the car battery, we were able to get enough electricity to power ONE take at a time. Then we'd shut everything down until we were ready to roll again. Then we'd radio for the power to be turned on again, but we'd immediately turn off the lights, and just send the juice to the fog machine so it could warm up and get going. When the room was sufficiently re-fogged, the AD or Director would call for quiet on the set, we'd flip on the lights, call for "marker" (what we came to call the white board) and clapper, roll and action! Soon as Matt said "Cut!" we'd radio out for the power to be disconnected. We'd regroup and do it all over again.

Kind of choppy, but we got a real system down! Went like clock-work! Grace and creativity for problem solving once again! Thank the Lord!! The DP and Director were satisfied with the takes, and we finished just in time for our wonderful second actor to go on to his other commitments.

Many thanks to John V and Matt S and whoever else helped man the battery. Thank the Lord for keeping us safe, too--we weren't keen on an explosion at the cabin. On the battle field would have been fine, but that wasn't to be shot until Monday. And neither cars or batteries were period, anyway.

It was decided to just shoot one more scene that required only Evan, then pack up for the day. Plenty of work was done back at the house, I'm sure. Several of us went searching for an Internet connection so we could update the blog and get some other work done. We found our beloved 50's hot spot. After working for a good while, taking pictures, talking on the phone with some other Christian filmmakers about what God was doing through their project, and telling the folks back "home" to go ahead with dinner, we headed back for a planning meeting and to celebrate Rachel's birthday!

I have no clue what time we went to bed that night. Whatever it was, we got up early enough the next morning...

And here's a picture of JC for you. From Sunday, I believe.


-Kayleen for DCFM

Saturday Revisited

Picking up on the chronology with a slight review...

Saturday, we set aside part of the morning for our church service and had a wonderful time in God's Word. We moved worship from Sunday to Saturday because we anticipated many of our actors arrival Sunday morning, and getting them situated at that time would disrupt any attempt at corporate worship.

Like said, a few of the guys ran a couple errands into town and attempted to update the blog, but they couldn't find a connection. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, everyone had their assigned duties. JC, Kayleen, John V, Sage and Matt S conducted the official director's interview (part of BTS). It was great! The rooms in the ranch house were painted various colors. We felt like we were in the White House: there was the Green Room (two of them, to be exact), the Blue Room, and the Red Room. We shot Director Bradley's interview in the Blue Room (aka the Sewing Room). Out in the Kitchen, Susan headed up the efforts to finish the many and varied costuming needs. From the whirr of the sewing machines, it sounded like they were very busy. Obviously, they kindly moved out of the sewing room for us.

Some quick location work was necessary on the part of Matt B, Susan, and JC (any maybe a couple more) before the guys returned. When they did, John Naylor and John-Clay (JC) gave a demonstration on how to set up the track and dolly for Matt S and Jaclyn, who were assigned to especially help with that operation on set. While they bent their brains over track buttons, shims and not running JC off the track, Director Matt and Assistant Director Sage again went to the clipboard to further refine the shooting schedule. Or maybe they were creating it. They had to rewrite that shooting script so many times that week--the Lord was teaching us to rely on Him and be flexible as key components of making this film would get shifted or changed in ways beyond our control. The creativity in problem solving that the the Lord supplied was amazing!

Once the dolly demonstration was done, set crew headed out to the fixed-up dilapidated old cabin to get the place lit and ready to shoot later that evening. We had intended to shoot three scenes that afternoon and evening, but found out our second actor couldn't stay as long, and had to come earlier at that. Immediately everyone shifted gears, with no second thoughts and no complaining. The mindset was on what we needed to be done to make things work and go at it! And make it work they did.

Instead of shooting the outside scenes first, we shot the inside scene (see the blue-toned picture from previous post). And good thing we did--it took up all our time with our actor. Who, BTW, did an outstanding job!! We got lots of exercise in prioritizing that week.

And if things hadn't been turned around enough, wait 'till you hear about the batteries going out on our lights...with the clock still ticking!! And again, no way to fix the problem.....

Monday, June 4, 2007

Here are some movie stills for you.






Saturday, June 2, 2007


The Drummer Boy.


Even wet after a shoot in the rain--still smiling!
(Edit: Evan :D )


Part of the battle.


Lovely Stephanie as Mrs. Lee, Eddie's mom


A Confederate sniper played by one of our wonderful Re-enactors


Skirmishes amongst the crew: Assistant DP and Assistant Sound Tech having problems (not really--they posesd this)


Shooting one of our night scenes. There are actors hidden in there somewhere! Crew holding several reflectors while DP shoots from above. In fact, far left is our Eddie Lee character; next is Hannah, our Script Girl; Director Matt B; Rachel, our make-up artists helps hold a reflector; Assistant DP and DCFM VP John N also holds a reflector in front of Alan, another wonderful actor; Stephanie holds the the marker/clapper board; and last but not least, the BTS Cam, Cannon XL1S. Oh, Evan and the drum are sitting on the ground in the middle.


Kayleen shooting BTS. Gotta love the Home Depot pouch--tacky looking, but they work very well! Gotta love Home Depot!


"Hoover", "Eddie", and "Whitey". Jolly good fellows (especially considering the killer schedule we had).


Our founder, Jaclyn.


Our AD, Sage, filling in by holding the boom for our sound tech, Aaron, while he played a part in the movie.


Neat shot of Whitey (Alan) taken by John N.


DP and Director. Very Director-ish looking here, don't you think? They did an outstanding job!!!


Make-up artist, Rachel, did a very good job!


Stephanie helping with BTS.


Aaron: Sound Tech, Snake Slayer, Actor.